Corporations take over Christmas

It turns out that I was wrong yesterday. It's not the switching on of the lights that starts Christmas (or the first Sunday of Advent) but the arrival of the Coca Cola truck. So says a representative of the company in the local paper.

So the festive season can be said to have well and truly kicked off in Carlisle today. The huge red truck was parked in a prime spot on the High Street and people were flocking to have their photos taken in front of it and queuing for a free can of Coke. Such a nice, cosy image (Carlisle being chosen because Coca Cola Co has named it as a "kindness hotspot".) And that nice jolly Santa (not, as popularly supposed, red because of Coca Cola - see here)

The Coca Cola company (total assets §86bn) is mired in controversy surrounding its products and practices.

Coca Cola has been criticised as contributing to childhood obesity, osteoporosis in women, caffeine addiction and the unhealthy spread of American culture.

The human rights issues can be read about here

The killer coke website says that 'When people see Coca Cola ads, they should think of crimes and misconduct on a worldwide scale so unthinkable that all of Coke's products become undrinkable'.

That should leave a bad taste in the mouths of the kind folk of Carlisle.